Pan: When will dues be paid?

February 18, 2004

This is 2004. Yet we persist transmitting useless misinformation and blatant lies about the only phenomenon we can claim 100 per cent as our own and which today helps to define our special space - ie pan.

Last Sunday, one week before Panorama finals, the Sunday Guardian carried a magazine titled "Pan Evolution" in which for the most part there was information gleaned from, of all places, Pan Trinbago's web site(www.pantrinbago.co.tt/home/index.asp). Listen to this anti-historic nonsense from Pan Trinbago:

"...When Adolf Hitler drew Europe into World War 2, the British colonial government summarily banned the tamboo-bamboo bands, forcing the people to look for other ways to make merry. Readily available were steel drums discarded by the oil refineries on the island. As they banged against the flat surface of the drum, the fun seekers accidentally stumbled upon a sound that would lead to further experimentation and, consequently, the birth of steel pan..."

There can hardly be any other single paragraph packed with so much misinformation and distortion. The banning of tamboo-bamboo had nothing to do with World War 2. In fact tamboo-bamboo was banned in the early '30s (some historians cite 1931, some 1932) and it was banned on the pretext that pieces of bamboo were used as weapons in clashes between rival bands.

In addition, the "bamboo/pan" interchange had been a factor from the very inception of bamboo after the banning of the skin-drums that originated in Africa.

The fragility of bamboo could not withstand the extensive period of constant pounding. Bamboo bands left their yards with 100 per cent bamboo instruments but would return to base each time with more "pan" than "bamboo". "Pan" in this instant means any piece of durable metal of any shape or size.

If we do not comprehend that there has to be scientific distinction made between "pan" as discarded container or utensil on which rhythms can be carried and "pan" as a highly specialised, crafted group of instruments, then we would be at a lost to comprehend this particular historical process of development.

It is this failure that allows the liars and self-seeking charlatans to get away with virtual murder. It is this distinction that separates "Alexander Ragtime" from "Hell Yard" and "Woodbrook" from "East Dry River".

"Pan" was no accident as suggested in the quotation above. All the talk that we have heard over the years about a "Muscle Rat" or a "Thick Lip" pounding on drums and accidentally discovering "notes" is hogwash. Pan as crafted instrument was the result of focused, native intelligence and it appeared at a precise moment and at a particular place.

When Carifesta V was held in T&T in 1992, Prince Batson, an early captain of All Stars from Hell Yard, gave the organisers samples of what in fact were authentic early instruments.

An exhibition, "The Coming of Age," was mounted at Mille Fleurs, openly displaying both a four-note and an eight-note concave instrument made from paint pans and which were held in one hand and played with the other. There were pictures of the bigger, heavier biscuit drums that were transformed from the "cuff-booms" to the "tune-booms."

In that exhibition, the country, for the very first time, was shown these authentic artifacts. The exhibition was taken to all parts of the country, to Point Fortin, Tunapuna, Central Bank concourse, etc and was last seen at the Grand Stand during Carnival of 1997.

Prince Batson passed on recently and in his last days he lamented that his property was never returned to him despite his numerous requests to this end so that they could be lodged in their true home at the All Stars complex in Hell Yard. Yet today the misinformation continues, even despite the tell-tale sign that no other person beside Batson could turn up with such genuine artifacts.

Neville Jules made the first four-note and eight-note concave ping-pongs in 1945 and played simple melodies like "Alan Ladd, this Gun for Hire" and "Yuh Want to Come Kill Me," and was known to change the "fourth" note of the four-note pan to suit what he wished to play at a given moment.

Ellie Mannette was the first to do convex ping-pongs. Spree Simon was more a virtuoso player just like Fisheye, Batsby and so many others, but not a renown pioneer nor inventor.

Also these early pans were not made from oil drums. The 45-gallon oil-drum pan first appeared at a competition at the Monarch Cinema in 1948, played by one "Snatcher", Cyril Guy, of Tacarigua, much to the astonishment of Jules and Ellie who were seated together in the audience.

An example of the likely danger in persisting with such misinformation arose recently when one commentator on TV intoned that if pan originated from the oil drum, then it is quite logical to assume that someone from around the oilfields, in areas such as Siparia and Fyzabad, discovered pan. It is more than time to put all this to rest.

Neville Jules is the father of the modern steel orchestra. He conceptualised the orchestra comprising first pans, inside pans (ie Grundig, cuatro pan) and high and low basses. Why deny him his glory? He concedes readily that Ellie Mannette tuned the best front-line pans, given the ability as a turner to get exactness and precision of melodic resonance from the metal, so Invaders had somewhat better front-line tonal quality but All Stars made up for this with its power-basses and in-depth musical arrangements, which is still today its forte.

To deny Jules his stellar historic position is in fact a deed that impoverishes and diminishes the importance and relevance of All Stars and East Port-of-Spain to the developmental process of pan

There are profiles of various bands in that Sunday Guardian magazine. Desperadoes and Exodus are given prominence. Even Fonclaire, Merry Tones, Renegades, Invaders, Phase II, Starlift, even Redemption Song, but no mention of All Stars. Again one is left to wonder.

What criteria for selection were used? It was suggested that the criteria were (1) number of Panorama wins, and (2) overall popularity in the country. If that were indeed the case, then only Desperadoes and Renegades, nine each, have won more Panoramas than All Stars, five, and in regard to overall popularity, it is interesting to note that the People's Choice category in Panorama had to be abandoned because All Stars' dominance there was formidable.

If, in fact, People's Choice is an indication of excellence then one can quite easily add six more wins to the five All Stars were awarded: "Curry Tabanca," "Doh Back Back," "Heat," "Dust In Yuh Face" (recall the cries of "encore" from both the North and Grand Stands), "Me and Mih Lady" (awarded best arranged tune that year), and "Rain Melody".

It appears that many people are mistakenly "writing-off" All Stars in 2004. That can turn out to be foolhardy. Come Saturday, everybody starts at zero, and it is execution, before different judges, that will tell.

Mark these words, there is an affinity between the history that Jules and All Stars have been made to suffer and the denials that have led De Fosto to wonder: how much longer will he be forced to pay dues.